River ,'War Stories'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Guy Maddin's 15 minute short in collaboration with Isabella Rosselini, reflecting on her father Roberto. This is the kind of stuff I love by Maddin: visually beautiful, playful, silly, theoretical. And because it's Isabella Rosellini, this is also very heartfelt.
She's a good collaborator for him.
The sound sync is off but it's only a little distracting.
Recommended for any serious film fan.
Then there's also the pure comic genius of Maddin's Sissy Boy Slap Party.
I've got a feeling shrift might bookmark this one.
Henson is making The Doubtful Guest into a movie! [link]
After stopping by for my workout on the way home, I think I'm going to pop in my tape of Godspell to watch tonight if there's nothing else on. Gotta love Victor Garber in a huge frizzy 'fro! I still wonder how they did the outdoor scenes in NYC with absolutely no one in sight.
I'm still wondering how they got shots of London with absolutely no one in sight for 28 Days Later.
They do the same thing in Times Square at the beginning of Vanilla Sky. I think half of their operating budget must have been spent on bribing people in the government to make that happen.
I know the Vanilla Sky thing was at like five in the morning on a Sunday, which is generally a good time to find an empty city.
Saw GRINDHOUSE. Definitely NOT for everybody. Rodriguez's half was totally early Peter Jackson/Romero/Evil Dead (how Evil Dead 2 needed to go out unrated while this gets and R rating - not even counting the atrocities in the trailers and Tarantino's half - is a testament to either how desensitized the MPAA has gotten towards violence, corporate strong-arming, or, I suspect, a combination of both). I think it has a bit more heart than the reviews have generally been giving it credit for, though.
Tarantino's was both more low key and more disturbing - I agree with the critics who say that he couldn't resist doing his type of movie, as opposed to just doing a schlock pastiche (though it's that too). It's definitely going to stick with me, and Kurt Russell is pretty amazing.
WONDERFALLS fans should note that Tracie Thoms basically has the Sam Jackson role in Tarantino's movie, and she cusses the hell out of it.
Grindhouse looks so awesome! I'll probably see it tomorrow. I read that Rodriguez and Tarantino expected that they'd have to fight the MPAA to get an "R," but they were both disappointed that the MPAA gave it an "R" right away.
And Tracie Thoms looks like a badass in the trailer. It'll be nice to see her playing something other than the girlfriend or the best friend.
Grindhouse definitely needs to be experienced in a theater. It just wouldn't be the same on DVD. The fake trailers, oh my God.
I loved Rodriguez's half; I actually think it was a damn fine zombie movie. Well constructed, with characters you end up caring about. Fun dialogue, lots of explosions. It's just fun as hell, a real ride.
And then Tarantino's half is so...slow. It takes a looooooong time for anything interesting to happen, but once it does get going, it's pretty good. But I didn't really care about any of the characters, even though they talked way the fuck more.
The critics seem to prefer Tarantino's half, but I agree with the San Francisco Chronicle review, which sided with Rodriguez and said it felt like Tarantino didn't even try.